Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
click All Mail on the Gmail Web site. (Mail still uses a dedicated Archive mailbox
for each non-Gmail account.)
Archive vs. Delete
Many Gmail users habitually click the Archive button in the Gmail Web interface when
they're done with a message, and have trained themselves to expect that “deleting” a
message in this way doesn't actually erase it or move it to the Trash but only removes
it from the Inbox (leaving it in All Mail).
If you're such a person—and you want to approximate this behavior in Mail by pressing
Delete to archive—let me first say, please don't. It's a dangerous habit, because Mail
thinks delete really means “delete” and you could end up losing mail, especially if you
accidentally do this in a non-Gmail account. However, if you're determined to make
“deleting” Gmail messages in Mail archive them, try the free
Delete2Archive plug-in
,
which causes Mail's Delete key to simply remove the Inbox label for messages in Gmail
accounts.
A better idea is to retrain yourself to use Mail's Archive command (or its associated
toolbar button or keyboard shortcut, Command-Control-A), which has the same effect
and is much less risky.
•
Special mailbox handling:
Mail in Mavericks automatically uses the correct
Gmail mailboxes for Drafts, Sent, Junk, and Trash, without the extra setup steps
that were formerly required. However, as of 10.9.2, you're free to choose differ-
ent mailboxes to serve these purposes, and you can even opt not to store such
messages on the server at all.
•
Starred:
Another “special” Gmail label, which appears as a mailbox when you
use IMAP, is Starred. Gmail expects you to use the Starred label to indicate mes-
sages that are especially important. Mail doesn't have stars, but it does have
flags (Message > Flag >
Color
), which serve approximately the same purpose.
So, a message that's Starred in Gmail appears with a flag in Mail, and vice-
versa—although Mail's various flag colors don't map to Gmail's star colors; the
most you can guarantee is that having some color of flag equates to having some
color of star.
•
Chats:
If you use Gmail Chat, the transcripts of your conversations can option-
ally be saved to your Gmail account as messages with a Chats label. This shows
up in Mail as a Chats mailbox in your Gmail account, which you may either ap-
preciate or find incongruous, since it doesn't actually contain email.
